Meifu's Gate and Sukuse: The Oneshots (II) Cherry Blossoms
by VraieEsprit
Summary: Set some years between Meifu and Sukuse. Shunsui comes to a realisation about the young girl in Riri's foster care, and sees a surfeit of sake and a ramble to Juu as the obvious solution to the problem. Oneshot


**Sukuse One-shot  
Prequel: Cherry Blossoms**

 _This one shot was written some time during the writing of Sukuse. I toyed with including it, but decided to leave it vague because I know some people were iffy about this as a storyline being confirmed in black and white. There was never any question of it being otherwise, however – right back from the start when Shizuka was introduced in Meifu's Gate Fourth Maki._

 _This scene is set between the end of Meifu and the beginning of Sukuse. Shizuka was an important OC to me because of the part she plays in the long term future. Anyone who read Sukuse through to the end probably realised that her destiny is with Kohaku, and that between them they are the ancestors of Aizen Sousuke. For that reason she had to be Shunsui's daughter, to carry the colouring of the Kyouraku more deeply into the Aizen bloodline._

 _This is a scene between Juu and Shun, discussing the reality of Shizuka's existence. It also dwells on Juushirou's own feelings about his not having children – a gap which is, in part, fulfilled by his adoption of Kohaku in Sukuse. As I said before, I believe Rukia and Hisana also to be related to Juushirou, but that's another story for another time._

 _Bleach as ever is copyright to Kubo Tite. Meifu and Sukuse are my mad rambles. I apologise in advance for the absence of Juu and Shun from this one-shot._

 _I also apologise that my Rose story is in limbo/hiatus. This is entirely due to Rose's manga status. So long as that continues, there will be no continuation to Marigold._

"You've been drinking,"

Juushirou stepped over the empty sake bottles with a frown, negotiating his way to the heart of his companion's office. Carefully he cleared himself a space, settling himself down on one of the expansive, silk coloured cushions that had been a gift from the main Kyouraku house some years before.

"You noticed," Shunsui's response was wryly humoured, and Juushirou's frown deepened, reaching across to take the half-full bottle from his friend's grip.

"I know you can take more alcohol than the average soul before you pass out, but I'd like to be able to talk to you before all your words blur into one another and you start asking me to dance," he said acidly. "Sora said you'd shut yourself away in here...is there a reason for this, or are you just having one of your moments of rebellion against authority?"

"You know, you can be really harsh, sometimes," Shunsui sighed, setting his empty _sakazuki_ down and leaning back on his hands with a look of resignation in his dark eyes. "I told Sora not to let anyone in - I said that I was busy. I suppose that fact in itself must've put her on her guard."

"You choosing to be busy? Probably," Juushirou agreed. "She went to the trouble of sending a message to Thirteenth because of it, so I guess your ruse really fell apart somewhere."

"Mm. I should've told her I was going to sleep," Shunsui rubbed his chin regretfully. "Oh well. Never mind. You're here now, and I've not got the energy to throw you out."

"What's bothering you?" Juushirou softened his tones, settling himself more comfortably on his cushion. "I know you can drink, Shunsui, and you do, often - but not like this, not shut away in your study on your own with the shutters half closed when it's the middle of the day. What's happened to put you in this kind of a mood? It's not like you...you're the one who always says that drinking is more fun when done in good company."

"That kind of drinking, yes," Shunsui agreed. He pressed his lips together, glancing around at the bottles which Juushirou had neatly gathered together. "Oops. Rather more than I expected. Not enough to really lay me out tomorrow, but still, enough that someone's going to notice the gaping hole in our sake supplies and start pointing fingers."

He rubbed his temples, casting his friend a hollow grin.

"I guess I can't keep it from you," he added. "You know me too well to be fooled. Besides...maybe you'll understand. At least, I hope you will. I hope you won't freak out. Not as much as I have...because I think it needs one of us to be sane and sober-headed."

"Considering there's not enough sake left for even me to get drunk on, I think that's a given," Juushirou said wryly. "Well? What's up? I'm here and I'll listen, so share."

"Mm," Shunsui extended a finger, running it absently around the rim of the empty _sakazuki_. For a moment he didn't speak, then, at length, "Juu, do you remember...a long time ago, we had a conversation about...about Father, and...well, about Riri?"

"Riri?" Juushirou's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Your sister Riri? Riri who made you that _haori_?"

"Yes. That Riri," Shunsui touched the fabric of the pink haori fondly, then sighed, dropping his hand.

"Is something wrong with her? Is she ill?" Juushirou asked anxiously.

"No. No, she's fine," Shunsui waved the concern away. "More than, in fact. Larger than life - I think she could probably scare a Hollow away with one of her lectures, but that's beside the point. No, it's another thing. We talked, if you remember, about Father and what he did...and me, and what I did...when I was still a stupid kid."

"I remember, vaguely," Juushirou narrowed his gaze. "So this has something to do with Matsuhara-sama? His...erm...indiscretions where your family was concerned?"

"Not so much Father," Shunsui hesitated for a moment, then groaned, reaching up to rub his brow as though by doing so he could smooth out his own worry lines. "You know that Shizuka is here at the moment, don't you?"

"I do," Now Juushirou was completely flummoxed. "You were happy for her to come here, weren't you? Said it was about time considering she's already twelve, nearly thirteen, and so on and so forth...that if Riri wasn't careful, her spirit power would mature and put the whole family in danger...didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I did. Exactly as you remember it," Shunsui sighed, hauling himself up into a sitting position and reaching for the remaining sake bottle, but Juushirou shook his head, moving it out of his friend's reach.

"Uh-uh. No you don't. Talk first, sake later. I want you coherent...you're already bouncing around all over the place and I want to make sense of what you're trying to say."

"Fine," Shunsui grimaced, but relented, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess that's fair. I'm not getting to the point, but it's a hard point to get to, so humour me a little. You're not in a hurry to get back to Thirteenth, I hope?"

"No, not especially," Juushirou shook his head. "It's fine. I can listen, so don't worry about holding back."

"Shizuka's spirit power is pretty strong," Shunsui reflected pensively. "We thought so when she was small, didn't we? Well, we were right. She's not at the stage yet where I'd want to cart her off to the Academy, but really, I'm hoping very much that she'll go. It's developing and quickly - I'm trying to help her manage it so she can go home, though she's completely unfazed by being here among all the other ranked officers. She knows Sora, and treats her like an honorary big sister. She's chatty to pretty much everyone, which confuses them horribly. But she's not a nuisance. She's listening to what I tell her...mostly. Sometimes she trots off on her own and blows up a hedge or a fence-post behind my back, but in general, she's paying attention. She knows I'm busy, and I have to foist her off on other people sometimes, but she's not as homesick as I thought she might be. She wants to go home, she says, but not until she can do it without hurting Riri and Inori-kun. So here she stays...for now."

"Eighth are all right with this?"

"Yes, surprisingly," Shunsui rubbed his chin again. "They seem to be treating her as an unofficial mascot. I made her help out with some of the chores, which wasn't popular, but she does it at home and Riri told me not to let her slack and think she was suddenly special because she had 'shinigami hocus pocus'," he made quote marks with his fingers, and Juushirou grinned.

"That sounds like Riri," he admitted. "I don't see what the trouble is, though. Shizuka's here, but she's not creating a problem. You're not bad at training, and you're not bad with kids - your visits to my family showed that, and you've been like an honorary uncle to Inori and Shizuka ever since you knew Riri existed. It's not like you to have fits of responsibility. Sounds to me like the kid is fine - in a few years she might trot off to Sensei and be taught all these things properly, but you're giving her a good grounding and helping her protect herself and that's no bad thing. I don't see what's wrong."

"Shizuka's spirit power," Shunsui said frankly, and Juushirou frowned.

"It's somehow dangerous?"

"No...probably not, not because we've caught it this early," Shunsui pursed his lips, considering. "It's more its nature that bothers me. It's...a little bit...well..."

He trailed off, and Juushirou arched an eyebrow.

"Well?" he prompted, and Shunsui buried his head in his hands. He took a deep breath, then raised his gaze, distress deep in the brown depths.

"Familiar," he finished the sentence reluctantly. "Her reiatsu, her _reiryoku_ , all of it. It's familiar, Juu. Too familiar for my liking."

"Meaning?" Juushirou was still puzzled, and Shunsui groaned.

"I'm still darting around the edges too much for you to cotton on?" he asked. "I guess I thought I'd made it clear. Perhaps not. Let me try and spell it out. Shizuka's spirit power relates to shadows and light. Who else do you know whose spirit power has elements of shadow and light in it?"

"Is this a Gotei quiz?" Juushirou demanded, and Shunsui shook his head.

"No, because I'll tell you," he said bleakly, reaching across to pat the nearest hilt of the _daishou_ swords that stood propped against the wall. "Katen Kyoukotsu. That's what. And you know what else?"

"Shunsui," Juushirou's eyes were already widening in realisation, but Shunsui pressed ahead, not waiting for his friend to answer.

"Three or four people have commented on how much she looks like me since she's been here," he said softly. "Shizu-chan calls me Shunsui-dono, in front of the squad, and they all know that she belongs to Riri, so they've generally assumed that that's why she looks the way she does. But Shizuka isn't Riri's daughter. There's no logical reason for her to look like Riri. Or, in fact, like me."

"But..." Juushirou's complexion had paled, and Shunsui nodded grimly.

"Sora commented on it, the first time she met the kid," he admitted. "She said that Shizuka looked a lot more like Riri than she did not. I didn't think about it, though. I should have, but I didn't. And now, as she's got older, she looks all the more like Riri. But...it's not just Riri's features she has, Juu. Riri looks a little like father - not much, but she has the eyes, the hair, and you can see it in her face. I don't look so much like Father either - again, the eyes, the hair - but in a different way. Shizuka...when I really thought about it...it's not Riri she looks like. It's not really Father, either. It's...mother's side of the family. The side of the family where...I get my features from."

"Oh God," Juushirou bit his lip. "I'm sorry, I was slow. I didn't...I should've realised sooner when you said you didn't mean Matsuhara-sama. But...are you sure? You think Shizuka might be..."

"Yes," Shunsui cut across him, offering a hollow smile. "I don't know for sure, of course, and I don't think that it would do anyone any good if I tried to find out, least of all Shizuka. But yes, Juu, that's what I think. And there's enough reasons to make my theory more likely than not."

"It's true that Shizuka has...those kinds of features," Juushirou admitted reluctantly. "With very small children it's hard to tell, but now, you're right, she's less like Riri than she was when she was small. I didn't even think, though...I assumed it was her mother's features coming through."

"Well, I asked Riri about Shizu's mother, once," Shunsui said darkly. "Only once, just in passing conversation. Apparently she had dark hair and green eyes. Riri said then that Shizuka's father probably had dark eyes, and it overrode the green gene. She said it was a shame, because Shizuka's mother's eyes were really pretty, and she always envied them. We joked about it then...but..."

"Have you discussed any of this with Riri?" Juushirou hazarded, and Shunsui snorted.

"Are you kidding? I value my life!" he retorted. "If I am right, well, I was seventeen, I was stupid, and a lot was going on - and mathematically, by the way, that adds up rather more than I like to admit. But this was a friend of Riri's, and she died trying to support her children, doing a job that ultimately killed her. If I...at best, I was a client. At best, I helped perpetuate that misery and made it worse by...by contributing to her burden. And Riri said that her friend loved both her children but...even if that's true..."

"You couldn't have known anything about it," Juushirou said softly. "You're beating yourself up, but you couldn't. Like with Riri, you couldn't have known. What happened to Shizuka and Inori's mother was tragic. I wish there had been something that could've been done to help her, or cure her, but she died of illness and illness, in the Districts, it's not uncommon."

"But I could've..." Shunsui began, but Juushirou reached out to put a finger across his friend's lips, shaking his head.

"You couldn't," he said gravely. "You made a mistake, and you know you did. You've worked hard to move on from that period in your life. What's more, you've been a part of Shizuka's life since she was four years old. You've known none of this, nor had any obligation to even notice her, yet you have all the same. She adores you. She and Inori both do, and look up to you as a member of their family. Whether you are or aren't Shizuka's father, you haven't neglected her. You've done as much for that kid as anyone else has, except perhaps Riri. And now, with her spirit power..."

"Which I might have given her," Shunsui interjected laconically, and Juushirou sighed.

"Yes, maybe," he conceded, "but you're going to help her manage it regardless. If it is from you, then it will probably be of a good level, but if it is, there's also reason to think she'll control it. You have. It's never been a problem for you and I'm sure it won't be for Shizuka-chan, either. There's no sense chastising yourself over what can't be changed. If Shizuka is your daughter, well, you're in her life and you've helped in raising and teaching her about the world. You have a bond with her - isn't that what matters most of all?"

"It frightens me," Shunsui admitted. "I've never thought to marry, never planned to follow Niisama's example and raise a family. But now...maybe I already did walk down that path. And the weight of that realisation..."

He sighed.

"Like with Riri being my sister, I can't step back and ignore it," he said heavily. "I can't know for sure, and that's eating away at me too. But if Shizu is my daughter, then I ought to be the one teaching her. I ought to be the one guiding her now. And I don't really know how to do that - or if I'm a role model she ought to have."

"It hasn't troubled you so far, given how much time you've spent with her."

"Yes, but then I didn't know this," Shunsui grimaced. "It's not the same, Juu. It really isn't. You're too smart to get into this position, so you probably won't ever feel the way I'm feeling now, but it's entirely different, somehow. Even if it shouldn't be...it is."

"Mm," Juushirou's expression became momentarily wistful, and Shunsui's eyes narrowed.

"You know, even if I am a tad alcohol-saturated tonight, that almost sounded like you regretted that fact," he observed, and Juushirou shrugged.

"You know my decision on that count," he said briskly. "Besides, there's still only the one person I would want to start a family with. And right now, she's still stationed on the other side of the Rukon divide."

"That is a fairly effective form of contraception, admitted," Shunsui reflected, resting his chin on his hands once more. "You're more steady than me, though. You reformed my bad ways, remember? Or at least some of them," he amended, as his gaze fell on the half empty sake bottle. Juushirou grinned, his grave expression lightening at this.

"Not noticeably," he responded lightly. "You seem as much now as you were when I first met you. But sometimes, Mitsuki being where she is makes things easier, and sometimes it's the opposite. She is still Clan, I am still District, and we are still making changes in that regard. Maybe you're right about me being more 'steady' - but I...even if there wasn't _haibyou_ to consider, I wouldn't want to begin a family without..."

He faltered, his cheeks reddening, and Shunsui snorted.

"See? That," he said, gesturing in his friend's direction. "That reaction, that way of thinking. I envy that. I've tried to emulate it, but I'm never going to succeed. My brain is just too kinked in all the wrong ways. I never had Saku, and I don't have a Mitsuki to pledge my devotion to. I'm not a...a monogamous type person. And for me to have followed Father in this - if I did - is a bit of a blow to take."

"I suppose," Juushirou said thoughtfully. "But think of it this way, Shunsui. If you did or didn't bring Shizuka into the world, well, you should still be proud of her. She's a good natured girl and she's impetuous but she listens to you. She's smart and learns quickly. She's a credit to Riri and to you, too. You should be glad that this came about, even if the circumstances aren't those you're proud of. The history might not be attractive - but like Riri, I don't think it follows that her birth has to be a bad thing. Whatever her mother dealt with, Riri said she loved her children. I'm sure that's true. Riri strikes me as a good judge of character. So instead of drinking yourself into a stupor over what you can't change, stop and think of what you can. Shizuka may be your daughter. She needs to go to the Academy, and then come here, to Eighth, where you can make sure no harm befalls her while she strengthens and gains experience. She needs to understand what a force she will probably one day be able to be. Even if her mother's genes diluted her _reiryoku_ so it isn't as potent as yours, that isn't a gift that should be ignored."

He pursed his lips.

"And she's healthy," he added sadly. "You have a lot to be grateful for, considering."

"You know, if you did marry Mitsuki, probably her Clan genes would override your _haibyou_ one," Shunsui pointed out. "Doesn't it have to be carried by both parents to manifest in a child or did I hallucinate that element of your disease? Isn't that why you have it but your siblings don't? Your parents both carried it, but Kaede-dono doesn't? Mitsuki's a pure Kuchiki of third degree. She wouldn't be a carrier. If that gene was still within the Kuchiki, your mother wouldn't have been exiled - right?"

"Ye-es," Juushirou acknowledged, "but I don't know how it works with an actual sufferer. They...we...don't generally live too long, and those who do have kids...the children don't survive much beyond birth. I know that, thanks to mastering my _reiryoku_ and to Shikiki's healing, I'm not about to die any time soon. Still, I don't want to bring tragedy or suffering into the world. It's all right, Shunsui. Mitsuki has her vocation, and I know our bond isn't one that will be broken by absence. It's undefined, but that's all right. I have my surrogate family here - my Thirteenth has any number of members without kin of their own, and they rely on me. Really, it's quite all right. But you should...if it is true, or even if it isn't, you should cherish Shizuka's presence in your life."

"You say that in a voice that means you believe she is more than she isn't my child," Shunsui grimaced. "I was hoping you'd talk me out of it, but didn't really think you would."

"You should talk to Riri about it," Juushirou suggested. "You say she'll react badly, but I suspect - considering Riri - she's already worked it out or at least suspects. She's seen more of Shizuka and she knew the girl's mother, so would quickly realise who she wasn't taking after. Shizuka and Inori look nothing alike, so they don't share fathers. And, maybe, Sora as well. If she suspects...well...she's your adjutant and more, your friend. You trust her, don't you? You let her meet Riri, so..."

"I did, and you're right. Maybe," Shunsui nodded. "It's an unhappy irony, though. I never thought of children, and couldn't be a worse role model if I tried. You...who ought to have a family more than anyone I know, and..."

"I have one. My Thirteenth, like I said," Juushirou said matter-of-factly. "And my siblings and nieces and nephews, of whom there are plenty. I have Grandfather, and Okaasama, and my aunts and uncles. I'm very lucky and far from being alone. I think the sake is making you harp onto things that don't matter more than the things that do."


End file.
